The prevalence of mental health challenges continues to worsen among adolescents, with Black American adolescents experiencing rates of suicide attempts that are increasing faster than any other racial and ethnic groups. Research has found that the neighborhood environment impacts mental health through the type and level of stress that people…

Suicide rates among Black youth have risen faster than any other racial/ethnic group in the past two decades. Black youth residing in rural areas are subject to systemic challenges such as minimal access to mental healthcare providers, generational poverty and oppressive social structures that lead to racial discrimination. Racial discrimination…

This study identified risk, promotive, and protective factors for handgun carriage among 265 primarily African American adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.3) living in low-income urban areas. Community-based violent victimization and witnessing violence and in-person and cyber forms of peer victimization increased the probability of handgun…

Research reveals that Black youth are less likely to use alcohol than White youth. It has been argued that Blacks are more likely to abstain because they have less disposable income, are more religious, and have more family support and/or control than White youth. It has also been suggested that not only are these compositional characteristics…

This article uses hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of African American children and their primary caregivers to examine the association between various community factors and child conduct problems. The analysis revealed a rather strong inverse association between level of collective socialization and conduct problems. This relationship…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth merged mother-child file, this article examines the relationship between living in four different family structures on key measures of youth well-being, studied separately by race. The authors also examine whether contextual factors mediate these associations. For Black youth, we find no…